Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies

This chapter appears in “Homophobia Goes Global: States, Movements and the Diffusion of Oppresion. Edited by Meredith L. Weiss and Michael J. Bosia. University of Illinois Press, 2012.

Observers tend to see homophobia, as it relates to the politics of the Middle East, as either the only response available to governments faced with the concerted “incitement to discourse” of Western human-rights groups (Massad 2002 and 2007); or as a function of religion, Islam in particular. As probable as the first explanation may be, it overestimates the power of human-rights networks, and it underestimates the reach and agency of Middle Eastern states. In this chapter, we “bring the state back in” (Skocpol 1979). To do so, we treat antigay rhetoric as an analytical category and examine the content, the productive force, and the work it does for the deploying power. As such, we see religious anti-homosexual prejudice as a convenient frame to be used by states when it suits their purposes, not as a causal force on its own. By tracing the transformations of gender and sexuality in the last two hundred years in Iran, we demonstrate that far from being the pawn of Western machinations, the Iranian state has varied its stance toward sexuality in pursuit of its objectives--namely modernization, consolidation, and most recently, deliberalization. The chapter is anchored around three moments of anti-homosexual rhetoric: first, the modernization moment lasting from the early nineteenth century to the onset of the Iranian Revolution in 1979; second, the Islamic nation-state consolidation, finally, the conservative backlash following the attempted liberalization of 1997.

Punktem wyjścia rozmowy jest pogłębiona analiza dwóch autobiograficznych książek: Retur- ning to Reims Didiera Eribona (2013) oraz The end of Eddy Éduarda Louisa (2017). Dyskusja dotyczy m.in. krzyżowego wykluczenia: ze względu na nieheteronormatywność i ze względu na pochodzenie klaso- we. Czy emancypacja gejowska istnieje tylko w obrębie klas dominujących? Jaką cenę za tę emancypację płacą jednostki, których korzenie tkwią w klasach zdominowanych? Czy możliwe jest jednoczesne prze- pracowanie stygmatu gejowskości i stygmatu klasy robotniczej? Dlaczego problematyzacja heteronorma- tywności doczekała się bogatej reprezentacji w literaturze i sztuce, tymczasem problematyzacja klasizmu wydaje się wciąż tematem tabu, zarówno w twórczości autobiograficznej, jak i akademickiej?

The conversation starts with an in-depth analysis of two autobiographical works, Returning to Reims by Didier Eribon (2013) and The end of Eddy by Éduard Louis (2017). The discussion concerns, among other things, the double exclusion due to non-heteronormativity and class origin. Does gay emancipation occur exclusively within dominating social classes? What is the price of emancipation for individuals from dominated classes? Is it possible to come to terms with the stigma of being both gay and of working class origin? Why has the problematization of heteronormativity been abundantly represented in literature and arts, whereas that of classism continues to be a taboo as a subject of both autobiographies and academic studies?

In 2016, right-wing media in Germany erupted with alarming revelations about an alleged epidemic of Middle Eastern refugees raping German women. The most salacious reports described "ISIS Sex Jihadists" on the loose. Eventually it became clear-as Der Spiegel and other publications revealed-that there was no "refugee rape epidemic." A few headlinegrabbing cases of assault, some of them involving refugees, had been blown up into a false narrative that reinforced an existing right-wing campaign against immigrants and asylum-seekers. But fact-checking didn't dislodge the narrative that already had taken hold. Similar frenzies frequently grip contemporary societies, often with little or no factual basis. Scholars have a word for this type of mass hysteria: a moral panic. And today, moral panics are a prominent feature of the political landscape around the world. This roundtable of academics and activists uncovered surprising transnational consistencies and resonances when it compared the phenomenon of moral panics across regions, in Europe, North America, and the Middle East and North Africa. A few common features of moral panics emerge. Most moral panics are intentional, invented, or fanned by opportunistic actors. Moral panics are powerful tools for manipulation, and reactionaries exploit them to rapidly construct social coalitions that might not otherwise coalesce. The victims of moral panics are almost always marginalized groups, who are cast as a threat to society's values, interests, and stability. And groups around the world seem to borrow from each other's deployment of similar techniques to create and leverage moral panics. Examples of moral panics with these features abound. Around the world, there are panics about "deviant" sexualities. Such moral sex panics often target LGBTQ people-whether in authoritarian states like Egypt or in countries with strong right-wing movements, such as the United States, where Republicans have created a furor around transgender people accessing gender-appropriate bathrooms. But moral sex panics can affect people of any sexuality, including heterosexual refugees and nonwhite males, as in the German case. And moral sex panics can target heterosexual women, as in Egypt, where, in 2020, several women were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for posting supposedly immoral TikTok videos. The panics explode over ideas, as well. Everywhere from Poland to the studios of Fox News, reactionaries have recast progressive ideas about the nature of gender as a militant "gender ideology" that will destroy traditional values. A similar panic has spread concerning critical race theory-an academic analytical framework that American right-wing leaders have seized on, with the help of plenty of disinformation, to fight against anti-racist education. Comparing these moral panics reveals that they are not solely or even primarily about morality. In case after case, they are shown to be about power-more policing of the marginalized; stifling social and economic change that would cost the elite; fighting democratic reforms; and redirecting grievances toward scapegoats. Governments and factions often use moral panics to mobilize support for preexisting political projects. Economic inequality, the weakening of state support, and the power of social media have made contemporary moral panics more potent. Understanding the logic of moral panics, roundtable participants show, is a first step toward neutralizing their dangerous weaponization against progress and rights.

This paper investigates the emotional import of literary devices deployed in fiction. Reflecting on the often-favored approach in the analytic tradition that locates fictional characters, events, and narratives as sources of readers' emotions, I attempt to broaden the scope of analysis by accounting for how literary devices trigger non-cognitive emotions. I argue that giving more expansive consideration to literary devices by which authors present content facilitates a better understanding of how fiction engages emotion. In doing so, I also explore the somatic dimension of reading fiction.